Last Light

by Alex Scarrow

  In the background she heard voices rising in timbre; several of them, loud, insistent.

  ‘Dad? What’s going on?’

  And then she heard the staccato sound of hammering again, more of it joining in.

  ‘Leona!’ Dad shouted, his voice distorted by the noise. ‘Leona! I’ve got to go now!’

  She’d never heard him sound like that, not ever. Angry a few times, but never like that.

  ‘Dad! What’s going on?’ she replied, her voice beginning to wobble, sown with the first seeds of panic. She heard a man in the background, close by, as if he was standing next to Dad. It was the sort of voice she guessed was normally very deep, but was now raised, almost shrill with panic - God, it was frightening. Something was going on.

  She heard Dad one last time. ‘Please! DO AS I ASK! I’ve got to—’

  And then they were disconnected.

  The call left her trembling. The voice in the background had sounded foreign, American perhaps. But if truth be told, it wasn’t the shrillness of his timbre, but the words she had heard this man shout that had set the hairs on her forearms standing.

  ‘Here they come.’

  The memory came back to her five minutes later, as she was playing over and over the last few seconds of that bizarre phone call. It was the tone of Dad’s voice though, that had brought the memory to the surface - fear, not for himself of course, fear for her . . .

  Dad seems so on edge. He sits her down on the bed, and looks at her intently.

  ‘You saw nothing important Leona. Do you understand? Nothing important,’ he says, speaking loudly, clearly . . . almost as if he’s speaking to someone else, someone on the other side of the hotel room.

  ‘But who were those men Daddy?’

  ‘No one you need to concern yourself with. Just a bunch of boring old business men, nothing to worry about, okay?’

  Leona knows that’s a brush-off. Those men were the ‘mystery men’ Dad was meant to meet. They’re the reason Dad’s been so distracted, short-tempered, nervous these last few days. But she knows by the way he’s staring at her, by the tremble in his voice, that she should do as he says and forget about them.

  Leona smiles reassuringly at him. ‘Okay.’

  ‘It happens, sweetheart, wrong room. I’ve done that before. No harm done.’

  Leona nods.

  ‘Good girl. Let’s just forget about this now, huh? Just a silly little secret between you and me?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Good. Remember Leona: our secret. Come on, I’m going to buy you that Beanie Doll you’re after . . . what’s her name?’

  ‘Sally Beanie.’

  ‘Sally Beanie, that’s right. And maybe, if you’re good, we’ll get the pony-riding set too?’

  Leona finds herself grinning, the men in the room next door forgotten for now.

  The memory, from when she was ten - that family trip to New York - had all but faded. She had almost forgotten wandering into that wrong room, then the right room, walking in on Dad, sitting in the dark. And then telling him what had just happened.

  But seeing that old man’s face again on the TV recently had been unsettling, and hearing that fear again in Dad’s voice - the memory had come tumbling out from a dark and dusty corner, as clear as day. She wondered for a second time, if she should have emailed Dad about it. There’d been something so intense about him - the day he made her promise to forget.

  He hadn’t been frightened, he’d been terrified.

  CHAPTER 20

  11.22 a.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  Lieutenant Carter watched the approaching truck. It chugged up the boulevard towards them, belching a cloud of exhaust behind it, and complaining loudly as the gears crunched and it gathered speed.

  ‘Move your fucking arses,’ shouted Sergeant Bolton as he waved the last of the platoon forward into firing positions up along the wall and beside the barricade of detritus covering the iron gate.

  Lance Corporal Westley waited beside Carter, the SA80 with the grenade launcher fitted beneath the barrel in his hands. He pulled the stock against his shoulder and prepared to fire.

  ‘Easy,’ he said, ‘not yet, let it get closer.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Following in the wake of the slowly moving truck, a respectful distance behind, he could see a large group of armed men and boys jogging to keep up. They were using the truck for cover to get closer. Carter could see their game-plan as clear as day. The truck would roll up to the compound, or crash through the iron gate, and then the explosives in the back would detonate. The armed men running behind the truck would storm through the open gateway seconds after the explosion and clean up quickly and easily.

  Simple and sensible.

  Westley was their best bet to set the bastard off before it hit them, but only if he could drop a grenade somewhere in the back of the flatbed truck. In their favour, the vehicle looked as if it was on its last legs and struggling to build up any significant speed. It rumbled closer, and with a shuddering clatter it bounced up on to the island running down the centre of the boulevard. The armed crowd jogging behind the truck were beginning to lag behind as the truck finally seemed to find its legs and began to pick up some speed.

  ‘Okay,’ muttered Carter, ‘when you’re ready.’

  Westley nodded and then lined the approaching truck up through his weapon sight. He raised the barrel, calculating the drop as best he could.

  With a thud and a puff of acrid smoke he launched a grenade.

  It arced through the air tumbling erratically as it went, coming down and bouncing up high off the ground several yards in front of the advancing truck. It exploded, shattering the windshield and ripping the hood of the truck off, exposing a grime-encrusted and rusty engine that shuddered violently on its ancient mountings.

  ‘Shit. Get the other USG, quick!’ ordered Lieutenant Carter.

  Westley picked up the second SA80 fitted with the grenade launcher, and lined up his second and final attempt.

  The truck bounced off the near side of the central island on to the road, amidst a cloud of dust and flecks of rust thrown and shaken loose.

  He hunkered down, aimed and then raised the gun upwards, once more allowing for the drop.

  A second thud and a puff of smoke exploded from the stubby and wide barrel of the launcher. The grenade arced upwards again, a steeper angle and much higher than the first, tumbling in the air and then finally dropping down.

  With only about twenty yards between the truck and the gate, Sergeant Bolton gave the order to fire. Every gun in the platoon, plus Mike and Erich both issued with the AKs, let rip. The front of the truck seemed to explode amidst a shower of sparks that reminded Carter of a Catherine wheel.

  Fifteen yards . . .

  The truck’s driver flopped back in his seat, shredded by the volley and only vaguely recognisable as having once been a human being. Carter watched Westley’s grenade continue to drop. It landed on the back of the truck and then bounced high again, off the back of the flatbed area . . . and then detonated.

  The blast pushed both of them back off their stack of pallets down on to the floor of the compound. Carter landed heavily and lay on the ground, temporarily winded - but bizarrely, looking up at the pale sky and enjoying the slow-motion cascade of a million comets of debris trailing ribbons of black smoke.

  And it was silent.

  He’d expected the detonation to be loud, but the only noise he could hear was the dull rush of blood in his ears, like the roar of waves crashing on a rocky shoreline. Really quite pleasant.

  He sensed movement around him, and slowly the reassuring rumble of distant ocean waves receded, to be replaced with the sound of voices screaming, impact, gunfire. He pulled himself up on to his elbows, still struggling to get his breath and looked around.

  The momentum of the truck had done its job and the shattered and burning chassis had managed to smash through the gateway. The immense blast seemed to have knocked everyone to t
he ground, and he watched as his platoon picked themselves up. Two of the Land Rovers and one of the two Cruisers nearest the gate had caught some of the blast and were burning fiercely.

  And there were some casualties; a couple of the lads who had been standing closest to the gateway were lying still - one of them in several pieces.

  Through a curtain of flames in the gap that had once been occupied by an iron gate, he could see the armed insurgents gathering. They were savvy enough to know their attack needed to follow in quick succession to take advantage of the shock and disorientation of the blast. And even as he pulled himself to his feet and fumbled for his weapon, the first and most foolhardy of them were scrambling through the burning debris strewn around the compound entrance.

  As the last fragments of the truck rained down around them, Andy stuck his head up over the bonnet of their Land Cruiser.

  ‘Shit, they’ve broken through!’ he shouted.

  He spotted the prone forms of a couple of British soldiers, the others were scrambling for cover, ready for the insurgents to stream in through the gateway.

  Mike reached for his AK. ‘I’m going to help them,’ he said.

  Andy took a look at the situation.

  Lieutenant Carter was rallying men behind some scattered pallets to the left of the gateway; he had about six or seven men with him, and Andy watched as they settled in and trained their rifles on the opening either side of the burning chassis of the truck.

  Sergeant Bolton, meanwhile, had called the rest of the platoon to him. Andy counted only another half-a-dozen men. They took up position around and behind the burning vehicles in front of the gateway. He was impressed at the speed with which they had gathered their wits and found effective covering positions; Andy’s head was still spinning from the noise and shock wave of the blast.

  There were a couple of weapons spare, lying on the ground beside two young men caught in the blast. He could rush out and grab one, if he was quick. But Andy could see the shimmering forms of men through the blaze, and one or two un-aimed shots whistled through the flames and smoke towards them. He didn’t fancy running out from behind the cover of their Cruiser to retrieve one of the guns.

  Mike turned to him. ‘You better stay here,’ he shot a glance at Farid, and the two Iraqi lads, ‘keep an eye on them.’

  Andy nodded. It made sense. He didn’t have a gun to fire, and if he did, he suspected he’d be more of a liability than a help.

  Several rounds thudded into the side of the Land Cruiser they were cowering behind. The gathered mob outside began to grow impatient waiting for the flames to die down and fired indiscriminately through the curtain of flames at the smouldering vehicles inside.

  Mike shook his head in disgust. ‘No fucking way I’m dying here in this piece-of-crap town,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I’ve got more important shit to attend to.’

  It was then that young Amal made a dash away from the soldier who was meant to be watching over him, but was now distracted - focusing on the threatening press of enemy bodies beyond the diminishing flames.

  ‘Hey!’ shouted Mike. ‘The bastard’s making a break for it!’

  The Texan raised the AK in his hands and drew a bead on the young lad as he raced two dozen yards across open space towards the gateway. As he pulled the trigger Andy knocked the rifle upwards, and three rapidly fired rounds whistled harmlessly up into the sky.

  ‘Are you fucking crazy!’

  Amal wasn’t trying to escape from them.

  The young man slid to the ground dislodging a cloud of dust as he reached the nearest of the two bodies, and the dead man’s rifle. The ground around the body suddenly exploded with several puffs of dirt, as the insurgents zeroed in on the movement inside the compound. Amal waited, lying as flat as he could behind the body of the British soldier, using it as cover as several more bullets thudded into the side of it.

  ‘He’s going for the guns.’

  Mike said nothing in reply, as he watched the Iraqi lad cowering nervously, with the rifle lying flat across his chest.

  The gunfire diminished momentarily and Amal flipped himself over on to his belly, ready to leap to his feet at a moment’s notice.

  Mike hunkered down and aimed down the barrel towards the young man.

  ‘Jesus! I said he’s going for the guns!’ shouted Andy.

  ‘Shut up!’ grunted Mike. ‘I’m giving him a hand.’

  He fired off half-a-dozen well-aimed rounds towards the mob on the far side of the truck. One of them threw his arms up and went down; the others ducked instinctively.

  ‘Amal! Go! Yallah!’ shouted Andy realising Mike was offering covering fire.

  The young man sprang to his feet and lurched another dozen yards across the compound, and then hit the dirt as he arrived beside the second dismembered body and reached out for the gun there.

  It was at this point that the first and most courageous of the mob outside decided to pick their way through the smoking and scattered debris, and enter the compound with their guns firing.

  Lieutenant Carter’s and Sergeant Bolton’s men both opened up at the same time, releasing a criss-crossing lattice of bullets that quickly cut them down. Several more of them filed in from behind, dropping down behind the bodies of their comrades, using them for cover, and firing back with surprisingly cool heads.

  Amal remained where he was, trapped by the incoming and outgoing gunfire zipping past only inches above his prone form. The intense exchange lasted for only about ten seconds, and then a shared lull occurred as both sides reloaded.

  Amal took his chance then, pulled himself to his feet, clutching both of the SA80s in his arms and began to scramble back across the compound towards the Land Cruiser.

  ‘Oh shit, come on!’ Andy yelled. Farid had joined them and was yelling something, probably very similar, in Arabic.

  Amal’s luck lasted most of the way across, but a well-aimed burst coming from one of the half-dozen men that had gone to ground and established a toe-hold inside the compound, brought the lad down. He fell forward as a shot punched him squarely between the shoulders, and the two assault rifles spilled out on to the ground beside him.

  Mike thrust his AK into Andy’s hands, and then leapt out from behind the Rover. He loped across twenty feet of open ground towards the two valuable weapons, frustratingly close to being retrieved.

  Sergeant Bolton’s men were firing again, having reloaded. They were managing to keep the heads of the men inside the compound down. Even so, more of them were stepping through the steaming, smoking debris and firing towards the American, attracted by the sudden burst of movement.

  Mike dropped to his knees as he reached the two weapons. He grabbed the strap of one of them, and slung the gun over his shoulder. Then, he reached down and grabbed both of Amal’s hands.

  The lad was light, and Mike dragged him roughly across the ground, like an empty sleeping-bag, as bullets threw divots of dirt up around him.

  Sergeant Bolton spoke over his radio on the command frequency to Lieutenant Carter.

  ‘Sir, we need to push these bastards back out - now.’

  ‘Yes I know,’ the Lieutenant’s voice crackled back.

  Bolton counted about half-a-dozen men that had managed to make their way into the compound and find secure, hardcover positions amidst the scattered mess of debris inside. From there, those buggers were doing a good job of holding the door open for the mob outside. He had some grudging respect for them. Those men were seasoned fighters, perhaps having cut their teeth in Afghanistan; the hardcore few that one would find at the centre of every contact that seemed to exist in the midst of every street riot. And they were prepared to die, happy to die, longed to die. In Sergeant Bolton’s experience, a mindset like that, having no fear of death, was more than a match for any type of cutting-edge battlefield technology they could counter them with.

  The mob outside was gaining confidence, and the first few were picking their way through the gateway, given covering fire by t
hose hardcore bastards. Bolton decided they couldn’t wait any longer. This was the moment that would swing things either way. They needed to push hard right now, and dislodge their toe-hold on the compound, before numbers overwhelmed them.

  ‘Right lads,’ he said, turning to the six men sheltering with him behind the two unharmed Rovers. ‘We’ve got to kick those raggys out, or . . .’

  Or this’ll be all over in the next minute.

  ‘Or we’ll be well on the way to being buggered,’ he added.

  One of the lads, Lamby, nodded towards the dug-in enemy gunmen. ‘How do we do that? They got a fucking good position. ’

  ‘If we sit here they have,’ replied Bolton grinning, ‘but if we take them by surprise and charge them - they’ll bolt like rabbits.’

  Actually, he doubted very much that they would. He hit the press-to-talk button on his PRR. ‘Sir, we’re going to charge over and barrel-shoot the bastards.’

  Lieutenant Carter’s reply was hesitant. ‘Okay, in that case we’ll give you covering fire Sergeant. Give me your shout and we’ll try and keep their heads down.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ he replied as he refreshed his magazine and then turned to the others. ‘Check your ammo, lads. On my command we’re going over there and giving those shits a good kicking. The other boys will give us covering. You ready?’

  The six young men nodded in unison as they clambered to their feet, keeping low, but ready to charge on their Sergeant’s command.

  Bolton smiled.

  Good lads, all of them.

  ‘All right then.’

  He spoke into his throat mic. ‘Sir, we’re ready to go.’

  ‘We’re ready to cover you.’

  ‘On “one” then sir?’

  ‘Understood.’

  Bolton counted down loudly, ‘Three . . . two . . . ONE!’

  He leapt out from behind the parked Rovers, his rifle held at the hip, and without a moment’s hesitation the six men with him followed suit. Simultaneously, Lieutenant Carter’s men opened fire on the dug-in militia and as sparks flew around them, they all hunkered down.